


if through confidence misplaced

by omphale23



Series: ode to duty [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:42:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John closes his eyes, and Sherlock—Sherlock isn’t to be trusted. John ought to have realized this by now, but he hasn’t, he insists on behaving as if Sherlock will never hurt him, as if either of them has the faintest idea what they’re doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if through confidence misplaced

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [caersmane](http://caersmane.livejournal.com) for the read-through. This is the third (and shortest) installment in the sequence that begins with [in smoother walks to stray](http://omphale23.livejournal.com/399313.html) and [the quietness of thought](http://omphale23.livejournal.com/399684.html). Please see those for additional warnings and notes. In this particular ficlet, there is very little plot and some discussion of knifeplay.

John closes his eyes, and Sherlock—Sherlock isn’t to be trusted. John ought to have realized this by now, but he hasn’t, he insists on behaving as if Sherlock will never hurt him, as if either of them has the faintest idea what they’re doing. John sees himself, his own steadfast morality, in everyone he meets. Even in Sherlock, no matter how many times that faith is shaken.

It’s perhaps time to change that.

And so when Sherlock steps away, ignoring the small disappointed sigh that John releases into the room, he’s already wondering how far this can be pushed, whether John would be willing to do more, to allow anything and everything that Sherlock wants from him. He idly considers lines, and the way that they can be erased and redrawn in loops and patterns, salients across well-intentioned resolve. It’s a question to consider for next time.

For this, for now, he has something else in mind.

John opens his eyes as Sherlock clicks the second handcuff into place around the bedpost. His gaze narrows, the glance shifting from the cuff to Sherlock’s face and then back to the floorboards. Sherlock can almost hear the thoughts racing round in John’s head, and while he waits for them to catch up to the situation, he starts a list of all the activities he wants that are on the roster of _bad ideas for safe and consensual bondage_. He’s only made it up through _handcuffs are hard to remove in an emergency_ before John kneels on the end of the bed, hands wrapped around Sherlock’s ankles. Good. That was quicker than Sherlock expected, which means that they're done with negotiation for the evening. Negotiation is boring. Sherlock prefers surprises, and John is strangely good at providing them.

John should look ridiculous, wearing boxers and his open shirt, but Sherlock has to bite his lip to keep from asking too soon for more.

Even as John slips his hands slowly up Sherlock's legs to run teasing over his ribcage, back down to his hips, he continues to avoid Sherlock's eyes, ignores the shifting away from ticklish edges and quick frustrated breaths. Sherlock closes his eyes. He doesn't beg.

Sherlock reminds himself of this crucial fact—he _does not beg_ —as John grabs tight, and jerks Sherlock down the bed until his arms are stretched parallel and his back arches and his thighs fall open over John's lap. John's nails drag slowly over Sherlock's calf muscles and drift up behind his knees as Sherlock concentrates on breathing evenly and his fingers clench in empty air.

John stops, his hands wrapped around the back of Sherlock's knees and his thumbs pacing over the skin like a metronome. Sherlock thinks it might be an etude, perhaps a fugue, but then the feeling stops and John leans close, breathes the words over Sherlock's skin in a promise. "You can take as long as you like. It won't work. You're still going to have to ask me nicely."

A battle of wills, then. Sherlock loves a good battle of wills; it's almost as good as a battle of wits, but the last person he had a proper battle of wits with was Mycroft, and that didn't end well. They'd eventually decided to simply postpone the decision, and forgotten to ever—Sherlock suspects, by the impatient look on John's face and the way that his hands have tightened around Sherlock's bones, that his lapse in concentration has been noticed.

"Where are you? Right now, where've you wandered off to?" Sherlock shakes his head, but John leans closer and shifts his hands higher, until they settle against the creases above Sherlock's thighs, digging into the joint until something grinds together. Sherlock shudders at the hot red flashing pain of it. "It's not enough, is it? To keep you here. Not tonight."

John bends to take Sherlock's cock into his mouth, and Sherlock's breath escapes him in a choking gasp. Too soon, much too soon, just as his hips start to shift higher in rhythm, John leans back and replaces his mouth with his hand. His other is still working at the tendon in Sherlock's thigh, spiking each stroke with the clench of abused muscles.

"Gun or knife?" Sherlock blinks slowly, his eyes gone hazy and confused. John waits a moment, and then digs his thumb in harder. "Last chance, Sherlock. Gun or knife, pick one right now or I will."

Sherlock tenses, thinks hard, makes a choice. "Knife."

"You'll have to take the cuffs off." Sherlock shrugs. "It'll be messy." Another shrug. He doesn't care, not about that. It's always messy, and blood is just one more bodily fluid. He's never quite sure why John seems to think it worth mentioning. It's nothing more than another piece of himself that he gives over willingly, because John hasn't learned yet that he only needs to ask. That he can have this. That Sherlock has opened himself to whatever they do, and he never lets go once he's made a decision. Not when it's the right one.

John sighs, and stretches himself sideways until he’s climbed from beneath Sherlock’s legs. While he gathers supplies, Sherlock unlocks himself from the cuffs and turns over. He settles back onto the bed with a shudder, closing his eyes as he waits for John to come back. His back still stings with the welts from before, and Sherlock allows himself the luxury of feeling the heat left behind, sinking into the burn and flex of skin abrasions and overtaxed muscles.

He’ll wake in the morning with aches and sharp reminders. Sherlock smiles at the promise of it, and hums quietly under his breath. He waits.


End file.
